US Army Says Policy Violated in Soldiers' Deaths (lone vehicle not s.o.p.)

NYT/Reuters: US Army Says Policy Violated in Soldiers' Deaths
By REUTERS
Published: July 1, 2006

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three U.S. soldiers killed by insurgents south of Baghdad last month had been left alone at a checkpoint in violation of military procedure, a U.S. military spokeswoman said on Saturday.

An investigation is already under way into how the soldiers came to be on their own in an armored Humvee vehicle in an al Qaeda hotspot known as the "Triangle of Death'' as night fell.

Militants abducted and killed two of them in an attack in which the third soldier also died.

"A lone vehicle does not fit standard operating procedures and does not match published guidance,'' Lieutenant Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing told Reuters.

"The investigation will look at the circumstances surrounding this event and how it was that this vehicle was there by itself.''...

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